


Nostalgia

by tacotheshark



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: M/M, Pseudo-Incest, Touching, lots and lots of touching, not that explicit but it's that sort of fic?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:30:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacotheshark/pseuds/tacotheshark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki sneaks out in the middle of the night and is caught in an unsanctioned battle. Rather than seek professional help and have it known that he disobeyed his father so greatly, he asks Thor to heal him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I may have taken a few liberties, but ey—what's fiction for, anyway.

He shows up in the middle of the night, when the rivers of Asgard reflect like mirrors the near black of the skies, like spilt ink over calm waters, over the insides of canyons painted just across their surface.

He shows up standing tall as he can, face and limbs limp with tiredness, exhaustion that he tries his hardest not to show. Just like the crevices of Asgard’s canyons he has ridges cut into his face by he cares no longer what, some smudged and darkened with dirt, others contrasted a deep candy red against his impossibly pale skin. Blood comes forth, beads along a scrape in his neck.

“Loki—where have you been?”

He says not a thing, at first, only gulps thickly and shakes his head what would be frantically were he not so exhausted, or so weak—he mutters finally, eyes wet and lips not having closed since, “I am hurt.”

“I see,” Thor breathes, his eyes glued to the sharp contours of his brother’s face and the contrast of scarlet scrapes against skin paler than ever he’s seen on the face of another, clear even in the darkness of an hour without sun. “You should seek a healer.”

“Brother”—Loki gasps, eyes wide with desperation, a silent plea in themselves—“no.” Thor feels he should argue, but can’t find it in himself. “I can’t. Will you help me?”

And so he says, because the thought of denying Loki now is gone like a wisp of air stolen by the night, because perhaps it never was there in the first place, “Of course.” Loki’s throat quivers but no words come of it, and with a shaky gulp and in his eyes a flash of desperate need and of gratitude, he steps forward, past Thor, lets Thor close the thick wooden door behind him.

He walks wordlessly, boots quiet yet sharp on the stone floor born of his mighty and loyal as he tries yet injured gait. Thor falls into step just half a step behind him, their feet a sort of awkward but determined shuffle. He puts an arm around his brother’s shoulder, tentative though he soon finds it is wanted, needed even to steady and to usher.

Loki leads, boots steadfast yet slippery and his stiff, aching legs need help up the stairway. Thor, still silent, steadies Loki along the way with the arm around his shoulders—takes care of Loki because in moments like this, forget battles, kingship, _this_ is what he was born, what he was raised to do. Loki is not silent but wordless; his heavy breaths and small, pained gasps say all.

Loki sways at the top, and Thor steadies him with a hand on the small of his back, pushing gently against torn cape and clothing to feel the softness of skin around the unmistakable press of bone there. Loki’s eyes graze over Thor’s in quiet gratitude.

The nearest bathroom is just down the hall, walled white and tiled to Odin’s preference, accented gold in shining faucets and windowpanes and knobs. Loki stalks through the quiet, empty and echoing hallway with his back to Thor, not turning back once. He crosses the doorway and reaches up to light the tiny room’s lantern, stumbling slightly as he lands back on his heels. The room is turned pure, bright, too much so almost for the darkness of the night, even sobered by the near blackness just outside the window.

Thor stands outside of the open door, watches the back of Loki’s head, short black hair matted with blood and sweat, the back of his pale neck just peeking out from underneath, slick and shiny with the same. When Loki begins to unfasten his cape from its place pinned to his front, Thor can see only trembling, bruised wrists from where he stands.

Thor can only wonder, is it best that he leave? Is it privacy that his dear brother craves? Even as he considers, his feet are plastered to the floor and his eyes glued to Loki’s shoulders, pointing out from sleeveless armor covered only by thin fabric, revealed sharp and frail as his cape falls away, pools against the tile of the floor.

Loki turns on his heels, graceful even in his state which Thor cannot help but admire, and when he bends over to gather his cape, knees awkward yet swift as they fold, he catches Thor’s eyes—stares for a moment and then squints, warily, before turning back to fold his tattered cape neatly and set it down on the shelf that lines part of the wall.

When he speaks, his voice shines of authority even strained as it is. “We’ve got to wash my wounds, haven’t we?” He does not look back at Thor until his lips are closed again. His eyes are like candles, flickering between firmness and desperation. He says, “Have you learned nothing of the Allfather’s teachings?”

“Oh, yes,” Thor mutters, “of course,” and whatever feeling had him staying, standing back, is smothered easily as he steps inside, tile cool against his bare, calloused soles, shuts the door, and fastens the latch out of habit.

_There,_ and they are safe.

Thor helps Loki with his breastplate—it’s dented and loose, ill-fitted and the only protection he wears. Loki’s sleeves come away to reveal deep, messy slashes in his biceps, and when his back is bared to Thor, bruises blossom at his hips along with a dark splotch like poison ivy spreading along his scapula and side.

He is thin. He is not scrawny, as his muscle is firm, but the sight of him makes Thor worry involuntarily for his own stomach.

Thor wants to reach out and touch, if only to commit to memory—even though he knows well that his and Loki’s inhibitions are not the same.

Loki turns, then, ever so slightly, and Thor’s eye is caught by the expanse of smooth neck halted so abruptly by a slash lines up perfectly with Loki’s jaw line. Like a worm dangled on a hook, only to be ripped away when a fish tries its hand at feeding what it needs.

What Thor would give to see his brother’s skin, unlittered by its scarlet marks, untorn. Just for the closeness, just the connection.

Loki’s eyes flit up from the floor to Thor’s—from the angle Thor sees only one, shining and the deepest mossy green—and then tentatively to the empty bath tub. Another short glance at Thor’s face before Loki turns back again, a swipe of a sharp cheekbone and his face is hidden.

Of course, of course. Just a tissue won’t do the trick.

It’s surely nice to sooth his aching muscles, anyway.

Perhaps it should feel strange, when Thor kneels next to the shining porcelain tub, draws a bath and tests the water’s temperature with his fingertips just as he did when Loki was a child—perhaps it should feel odd or uncomfortable but nostalgia takes its place and Thor can see only that.

When Thor looks up again, Loki is entirely bare, black clothes folded neatly, boots cast off against the wall, and the clenching of Thor’s stomach rivals almost that of his heart. Loki’s calves are battered, the undersides of his knees bruised. One is cut, right at the crease, a slash that morphs into a scrape at the edge as if whatever had made it were kicked, fought away. Of course; the brother of Thor Odinson would never go down without a fight.

Could it be pride, that cuts through the thickest nostalgia and worry? Just barely, like a drop of dye in a pool of water. Or, just until the overwhelming need for warm contact takes over.

Loki’s hair comes just down to the back of his neck, and he twitches and shifts as if it were inadequate. As if he was cold. He does not let Thor see his face.

“Loki?”

He turns, casually as he tries on his beat up legs, and his stomach looks awful, pushed in and bruised like rotten fruit. His fingers twitch against his slim thighs, and anyone but his brother would think his face to be blank.

As it is Thor who stands before him, it is recognized as far from it. He is unsure as to whether he should step forward, offer solace—he wonders for a moment when Loki had become so complicated, his needs so hard to judge. He wishes he could reach out a hand, rub Loki’s shoulder, but even then he is afraid to press in a bruise.

Thor nods. So does Loki.

And Thor turns because any moment of modesty Loki can get is surely well treasured. He can hear the water slosh behind him, soft sighs as it stings and sooths unhealed wounds. He almost feels bad for listening, for even being in the same room as Loki who seems so to need aloneness, redemption from his own self or perhaps even just to forget—and he remembers then that he has been invited, that he is perhaps even needed, and so he gulps, and he turns around.

Loki is shivering, trembling at the dip of his throat, as water cools on his face, drips off his jaw and beads across the wound there—his hair is wet, mussed and drying awkwardly, he must have dipped his head under already. He is sitting, his side to Thor and his legs out in front of him, not crossed but bent. The water comes just short of covering his shoulders. His eyes are cast downward, and he looks not at Thor; even as Thor kneels next to him, lays a hand across the top of the shining white wall that lies between them, stares at Loki’s temple where Loki’s eyes would be if he would face him. There are short hairs matted to his skin there, and Thor brushes them away with his thumb.

Loki still does not look, but Thor does not press. Instead, he lays that hand finally across Loki’s shoulder, rubs the side of his neck with his thumb, spreads his fingers out to brush his pinky across the faint outline of Loki’s hunched over spine. Was Loki always so warm—so soft? Thor can’t remember the last time he’s touched an inch of this skin unhindered by the barrier of cloth or armor.

As he falls back into old rhythms, rhythms untouched in centuries, he finds that each second makes it easier to recall.

Thor shifts on his knees, presses up against the side of the tub to face Loki as best he can, and he almost loses his balance when he brings both hands up to Loki’s shoulders, both thumbs to caress the pale skin of Loki’s neck. Loki still shudders under his touch, but now he meets Thor’s eyes, tentatively, still, water dripping off his eyelids and pooling underneath, against his cheekbones. There’s water slick across his mouth, pooling between his lips, and he pushes his lips together and swallows to usher it away.

Thor rubs the pads of his thumbs into the muscle of Loki’s neck, gently but firmly enough, and as much as he hates to tear away from the well needed eye contact, he stares, he watches as the bruises there fade away, as the light skin ripens under the heat of the water and the touch of a god. Loki gasps and sighs, little sounds that for all Thor knows could be pleasure of pain or a mix of the two, and with a final squeeze to the back of Loki’s neck and a reassuring gaze that Loki drinks in, lips parted, like a reservoir, Thor moves on to his back.

Some of Loki’s wounds are deeper than others, though it seems too much damage has not been done, some close far less easily than others, while Thor has to press his palms against the offended skin and let the power flow between them like it often does between he and his most cherished hammer—yet, even then, the action is fluid, slick with the water in which Loki sits, engulfed, graceful even as Loki shudders and sighs and, after a while, sits up straight as normal because he has nothing to hide, anymore.

Some of Loki’s bruises look like wings—Loki, an angel, and suddenly Thor wouldn’t put it past him. A fallen angel, slim and broken but still so impossibly pure.

And in this moment, as Thor’s hands smooth and caress Loki’s skin without a shadow of doubt, as Loki begs silently to be made whole again by the only being who truly knows how, Loki has never been simpler.

Loki is no longer a magician nor is he a rebel, not a trickster or a wild spirit, he simply is Loki, Thor’s brother, beautiful in the half light, frail and white like china as the water sloshes around him, wets his skin and mends him, as he leans in to the touch of Thor’s fingertips like it’s his only lifeline.

Thor’s hands are on Loki’s hips, across sharp bone and firm flesh, and each little sound of Loki’s as his skin is changed and healed echoes through Thor’s hands and in his own throat—if ever they were two halves or two sides of the same coin, they’re long past it and they simply are one, skin touching, both gasping, the warrior and the warlock though distinctions don’t matter, anymore.

Thor’s arms are slick up to his biceps as he leans over the bath tub’s wall, as he slides his hands over Loki’s thighs, massages from behind, feels wounds dissolve under his fingertips and his hands pressing into soft, firm flesh. The water is warm like the blood that pulses through Loki’s veins, hot like the heartbeat and pulse Thor can feel fluttering under his fingertips.

Thor’s hands come up, slide up and down Loki’s arms, so thin but so strong, cup the backs of Loki’s hands and press thumbs into Loki’s palms to watch his fingers open up like flower petals. Loki’s hands shake, even warm as they are under the water, even as Thor’s thumbs swipe away all the dirt and blood from the creases within them.

Thor is close enough to feel Loki’s hair tickling his nose, and just for a moment he lets himself open his lips and breathe in. Loki still shivers, radiates warmth through the sheen of cooling water that beads on his neck and shoulders. Thor can feel his presence, the heat and the water and the movement and the quiet breath, and if it’s a sixth sense it’s his favorite, if ever he lost his first five he feels he has Loki and he has this, and that will always be enough.

It pains him to tear himself away, to leave the warmth and scent of Loki’s hair, the feeling of Loki’s hands flexing in his own, but even then he holds responsibility over all else, feels something deep in him flutter as he decides that Loki _is_ responsibility. Thor isn’t selfish, not when it comes to Loki, so he gulps and moves his face, moves his hands, trails one down Loki’s back and side as he shifts to better see Loki’s front; it is with a sharp inhale and that hand still on Loki’s hip, brushing over bone and going just slightly slack, that Thor notices how strained Loki is, between his thighs, how even then he looks more pure than anything, pale and healed, untouched.

Thor meets Loki’s eyes are they’re red-rimmed, staring right back, wide and shining and so damnably green. Loki’s lips are flushed dark, almost purple, and when he opens them no sound comes out for a moment until he finds his voice: “Brother”—he squints as if the vision in front of his is too bright, shakes as if he’s trying his best to hold back violent shudders—“ _please._ ”

_Relax, brother,_ Thor would say if words were necessary in the least, does say with his eyes and with his hands, one still on Loki’s hip and the other sliding up Loki’s thigh to his knee, _I’m not going anywhere._ He moves, again, knees aching against the tile but he couldn’t care less, wrapping his arms around Loki’s waist from behind again to rub the insides of his thighs, to slide his fingers up and down, a firm press but a gentle touch. He runs his fingertips over faint outlines of scars just barely there, seals them with a flutter like a butterfly’s wings that one would never think could come from such strong, scarred hands.

And when he touches Loki it’s no different, he’s been touching and caressing Loki all night, feeling the flex of muscles underneath his fingers, feeling Loki’s reactions echoing through his arms. Though this time, as one of Thor’s hands starts at Loki’s thigh and comes up to his stomach, pinning everything in between, Loki’s gasp is just a bit louder, his groan just a bit deeper, rougher.

And soon, one hand settles itself on Loki’s waist, fingers spreading in the dip just barely there, and the other is wrapping around Loki’s length and Thor is pressing impossibly closer, as close as he can get, because the only objective has ever been to make Loki feel good, to make Loki feel whole, and perhaps a small part of him knows that he’s needed for it.

Two halves, one whole; and Loki is so warm under Thor’s touch it feels like they’re melting together.

Time is meaningless, minutes pass measured only be the sweet ins and outs that are Loki’s breaths, not quite equal and far from steady. All is meaningless but family, all but Loki and Thor, who’s never loved anything as much as his brother.

Thor isn’t behind Loki, anymore, or as behind as he could get—he’s kneeling at Loki’s side, the hand on Loki’s waist pulling in and closer, the other still between Loki’s legs, moving gently, softly but enough. Steady, and Loki’s breaths are laden with more and more air, and none are quiet, anymore, each a whimper or a sigh or a soft moan, the most perfect noises that are like music to Thor’s ears, fuel to Thor’s soul he’d go so far as to say.

They say the lips are the most sensitive part of the body, they say they have the most nerve endings but Thor’s never cared much about trivia. Yet, as Loki tenses in both of Thor’s hands and pulses and spills over in the one, and his lips find Loki’s temple and catch the edge of Loki’s eyebrow to press against Loki’s skin as if it were all they knew to do, it is all Thor can do but think, of course, of course it would be this.

And he comes away, his mouth comes away and his hands loosen, and when he meets Loki’s eyes there are tears in them and something pained and confused and full of feeling and more than anything _wanting_ on Loki’s thin lips. That fades to wonder, when Thor brings a hand up to caress Loki’s face, to run a thumb across Loki’s cheekbone.

“Brother,” Thor says, “do not feel dismayed.”

Loki nods and doesn’t say a word. Neither does Thor, when Loki leans into the touch and the warmth that he craves, when he shakes his head and bats away tears and purses his lips and collapses into Thor’s chest, soaking through Thor’s shirt with his wet hair and Thor welcomes it with arms around a naked chest and fingers running through dripping hair.

Thor remembers when he and Loki were but children, Loki far too young to bathe himself properly. But he was always a bit of a rebellious spirit, never a fan of being told what to do, when, how to do it, and so he would thrash and fight, getting water everywhere, and he would shout, even long before he had any words in him _to_ shout.

Yet, sometimes he was exhausted enough not only to comply perfectly, but to slacken and fall asleep, still in the bath, in Thor’s arms and against Thor’s chest, and Thor would only pet his hair and with the soft muscle built of the training of a child, carry him up to their shared bedroom.


End file.
